Out of the Past

He's mediocre at best but I would be more than happy to have him in our bullpen. I think our bullpen will set records in futility.

I also liked his answer to an Alzegary question regarding players not being here long enough for fans to become attached to them, referencing Willis and Cabrera and implying the Marlins should sign both to longterm deals. Beinfest's comment was "they're part of this team for at least three more seasons" (end of 2009). That's a nice answer but the fact is in '09 Miguel and DTrain stand to make at least $30 million between them and almost all the good '06 rookies will be arbitration eligible so althoguh it was a nice answer I don't think it was a realistic one based on the Midget's recent comments regarding payroll.

I'm hardly wrong. Given the Pujols 7 million dollar precedent and average salay increases, it will be much harder (given the nature of arbitration) to prove that a similar player is worth less than an already established pay-scale for an equally accomplished player. They're not equal. Pujols outperformed Miggy after 3 seasons. I agree with TSwift. Doing a quick search from '04 to '06 the average salary jumped 16% from $2,327k to $2,699k. The '07 salaries are obviously going through the roof so if you assume a 12% increase in '07 (conservative estimate) then average salaries from '04 to '07 have jumped 30% meaning that Pujols' $7 million salary in '04 would be equivalent to $9.1 million in '07. Although Pujols' first 3 years were obviously better thamn Miguel's first 3 years I think Miguel should win the case and get his $7.4 million.

While it's true that in his 4th year Pujols "only" made $7 million and Miguel is asking for $7.4 million if I was Miguel I would look at the growth of MLB salaries from '04 to '07 and if the average salary has grown say 20% then Pujols' $7 million would be equivalent to $8.4 million in '07 MLB money and if that's the case then I can see the arbitrators going with Miguel's $7.4 million. I think the most interesting arbitration case this season will be Zambrano's.

''We would rather make a mistake holding a pitcher than moving one along and have them be productive somewhere else,'' Beinfest said. That sounds like something the Midget would say.

I wouldn't call Palm Beach a suburb of Miami but I would say Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach are definitely all in the same metropolitan area and I think that that's probably what TSwift meant to say. The comparison with Philly and NYC is ridiculous.

If Dr. Kanell is correct and the foot problems are behind him then we should have signed him for the $1 million deal the A's gave him. Of course that would mean Loria would pocket $1 million less of revenue sharing and would cut into his '07 profit, say from $25 million to $24 million. This has to rank as one of the worst off-seasons in Marlins history. In '09 it will take about $70 million to keep this team together and Loria will obviously not spent that much. This team's window of opportunity is 2 years, '07 and '08, and we pissed '07 away by not doing anything about the bullpen and CF. Ridivcuklopus.

who did he say that to? He didn't make any racist statements. Saban didn't call anyone that. Saban was retelling a story told to him about how LSU fans reacted to him going to Alabama and the one who told him the story used the word. This whole situation is nothing more than whiny South Floridians / Saban haters looking to make-up crap about him. The ones making up the crap come off looking A LOT worse of than Saban in this whole situatuion.

If you win how many years will it take to collect? You would be better off investing the money and letting it grow.

Charlie is on a roll spending money with his recent proposals like this one and the one for the new voting machines for 13 counties and the insurance "fix" fiasco that will bankrupt the state if we get hit by a major hurricane and his proposal to revise the current property tax scheme. I think the recent actions that Crist and the legislature have proposed or passed make sense. The voting machine fix is a no-brainer. It's a relatively small sum to pay for ensuring a greater sense of faith in the vote. Not having a paper trail is like something out of a dictatorship. The proposal to revise the property tax system makes perfect sense. The present system traps too many people in their homes. A revision is necessary to allow the free market to operate more efficiently, which is a good thing. And the insurance situation needed some fix. What passed was a reasonable stopgap measure that will improve the overall economic health of the state. It would not cause a bankruptcy unless the state got hit by multiple category 5 hurricanes that made a direct hit on Miami/Ft. Lauderdale or the Tampa/Orlando corridor. It's a reasonable stopgap measure. The only proposal that's questionable is the idea of giving a multi-million dollar tax break to multi-millionaires, for a sport that less than 1% of the populace cares about. Voting machines - I think the counties with the paperless machines bought them after the '00 election and that was an obvious mistake. I agree these counties should get paper trail machines but I think they should pay for the machines themselves. I guess we disagree on who should pay. Property Taxes - I think the current scheme is incredibly flawed and unfair and I think Charlie's proposal is a good first step in fixing the inequities so he gets a big thumbs up from me there. His proposal would cause major problems at the local governemtn level but the inequities must be fixed. Property Insurance - Rates will go down a bit but they will go down because: i.) the rates charged to Citizens' customers will be artificially low; ii.) homeowners will be underinsured and iii.) the reinsurance rates charged by the state to private insurers will be artificially low. THe bottom line is Floridians will now be even bigger players in the insurance and reinsurance markets and that's unfortunate but if that's the case then at least we should charge rates based on sound actuarial assumptions and not on some arbitrary rates decided on by politicians which is what we now have. Maybe I exaggerated about bankruptcy but if we get hit many, many people will be totally screwed because they'll be underinsured and the state will be billions in the hole. Stadium tax breaks - We pretty much agree on that one.

Charlie is on a roll spending money with his recent proposals like this one and the one for the new voting machines for 13 counties and the insurance "fix" fiasco that will bankrupt the state if we get hit by a major hurricane and his proposal to revise the current property tax scheme.

are you trying to get this guy fired? I think he is.

knowing the writer of this article....i can find a million holes in it I don't know the writer but unless he misquoted several of the people holding the strings of the CRA funds and unless he misstated the position of several of the CRA board members then using CRA funds will be an uphill battle. Do you see it differently?

Stewart or Williams don't excite me at all but I would rather have a healthy Stewart or an old Williams over Alfredo/Ross/Reed/Reggie/Sanchez/Borchard but I would take Alfredo/Ross/Reed/Reggie/Sanchez/Borchard over Erstad so at least things are not as bad as they could be.

Well if Jeremy was a good fielder then Jeremy in CF and a combination of Alfredo, Cody and Joe in RF would be another option but Jeremy is NOT a good fielder. Keep Jeremy in RF.

Beinfest had no problem with JJ coming back after the rain delay.

I don't think mentioning that he isn't well rounded defensively is absurd. Proving that he averages a lot of passed balls per inning is quite possibly one of the most fair statistics out there. He has a great arm, but gives a lot of free passes to baserunners. I merely raised that point to defend my position that he is somewhat overrated in the defensive aspect of the game. That was never a big issue either. It only seemed to be because a poster was confused on the difference between a passed ball and an error and needed to be corrected. I led to my conclusion like this: I considered his minor defensive shortcomings. I considered the gaping holes in his offensive game. I considered how much the Marlins will likely be paying Willis and Cabrera next year. I realized that the incentives will kick in because Olivo played 127 games last year and barring injury he will surpass that. I also looked at some of the other contracts issued to catchers around the league. While players like Victor Martinez and Michael Barrett are in the midst of multiyear deals, the dollar amount per year is only marginally higher. They also have been more consistent, while it's still slightly slightly questionable in my mind that Olivo will develop into a successful major league hitter. This year the market has been quite unusual, but that still doesn't justify the Marlins overpaying. I want him on the team next year, but I just cannot fathom as to why he will be making nearly half of what Dontrelle and Miguel will be getting. If that incentive figure weren't factored in I would be less disturbed over the whole thing. His power numbers just aren't high enough to justify that OBP. If he can get his home run total up to the mid 20s next year, then maybe. The incentive kicks in with games started and not gamers played and it's $150k, not $1.5 million. I think The Sun-Sentinel screwed-up in their story. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/base...ins.cabrera.ap/ Catcher Miguel Olivo avoided arbitration by agreeing to a $2 million, one-year contract. It includes $150,000 in performance bonuses: $25,000 for 120 starts, $50,000 for 125 starts and $75,000 for 130 starts.

So if the Marlins realistically have the best rotation in the NL East and quite possibly in the entire league... then that means we really can't be too far away from contending. All we need is to NOT have a hole in CF (meaning, get slightly below average to average offensive production with okay defense) and have an average to above average bullpen to compete for first place, or at the very least the wild card. I mean, think about it. First ranked rotation. Average bullpen. That makes our pitching staff easily top 3-4 in the NL. Last year our staff ranked 5th in NL ERA with our atrocious bullpen. Make that bullpen league average and all of a sudden we're top 3-4 easily. Without a hole in CF and another monster year from Miggy we become above average offensively - i.e. top 6, maybe top 5. Last year we were 8th in runs scored and the 6th team scored only 23 more runs than we did. We can easily catch the 6th team with an average CFer. So that puts us in the top 3-4 in overall pitching and top 5-6 in offense. That puts us at the cusp of the playoffs. Maybe that's why Beinfest & Co. have stayed pat. They figure someone like Sanchez or someone else that emerges will improve our CF position. And decent relievers can always be had via trades during the season. Why break the bank or trade our future now when we will have other (possibly better) options in the future? Remember, many teams think they have a realistic chance to contend, so they are unwilling to trade their relievers now. Once they realize they are out of it then those relievers become expendable. The bullpen is worse off right now than it was last year but CF is a bit better off because Reed and Reggie dragged down the '06 CF production. To get to a league average bullpen we need to add at a minimum a couple of reliable arms and maybe more than that. This bullpen, if it stays with the current bunch, will be the worst in MLB. If the starters stay healthy and if the starters don't have sophomore slumps and if we add some reliable bullpen arms and if we add a CF then we can compete for the WC. That's a lot of ifs. As things stand right now I see us 4th in the division with high 70s in wins.

500K? Id bring him in for a mill to provide some stability for the pen. How would you not want someone who could put up jobo numbers for a million? Im guessing he wants to start, so he wont be coming here anyway. The guy hasn't had a decent season in years. He hasn't had an ERA under 4.00 since 2001. 500k is still overpaying him. well, we disagree then. We need one more Borowski type for some stability in the pen and Park would fill that role. Hopefully 2 of the inexperienced guys step up during ST because it appears we're going into spring with what we have. There's still time left during spring to pick up a Wellemeyer type (some upside) or someone off waivers I suppose. See, I don't think Borowski is the ideal model for players we should be acquiring. Last year we had about 20 guys in the bullpen and Borowski was our best or 2nd best guy in there depending on how you look at it. I would love to have 2 or 3 Borowskis in the bullpen.

No MLB team in their right mind would put Borchard in CF because he's obviously not a CF but with that said he could still be the best option we have because of the ridiculous budget so throw him in the mix. If we don't trade for anyone then just let all these guys play it out in ST and give the job to the one who earns it (hopefully one will earn it!) and then hopefully he will help us win some games. If anyone has seen a bigegr CF than Borchard please name names. I can't think of any. No MLB team in their right mind would put Borchard in CF because he's obviously not a CF but with that said he could still be the best option we have because of the ridiculous budget so throw him in the mix. If we don't trade for anyone then just let all these guys play it out in ST and give the job to the one who earns it (hopefully one will earn it!) and then hopefully he will help us win some games. If anyone has seen a bigegr CF than Borchard please name names. I can't think of any. http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/B/joe-borchard.shtml The White Sox and Mariners played him briefly in CF.

I would look into the condos in the Brickell or the Brickell Key area which is just south of downtown and is 5 to 10 miles from just about anywhere in Coral Gables and you'll be going against traffic. Hollywood is only abotu 20 or 25 minutes so it wouldn't be too bad if you still have family there.

Cabrera interview talking about the Venezuela championship finals. There's nothing on the Marlins. ========== http://www.panodi.com/panodi/284736.html ?Hace cinco temporadas vivi? su primera final, precisamente ante los Navegantes del Magallanes. ?Qu? recuerda de ese momento? ?Nada, no recuerdo los malos momentos, s?lo los buenos momentos. ??Se toma esta final como una revancha ante los turcos? ?No, revancha no. Pienso que en el deporte existen muchas revanchas y competencias y nosotros s?lo queremos ganar. No estamos pensando en esa final, sino en el momento que estamos viviendo ahora. ? Aragua se recuper? de un mal momento en el round robin y logr? meterse de nuevo en la final, ?ya est?n acostumbrados a jugar en esta instancia? ?Bueno, s?. Gracias a Dios es nuestra quinta final consecutiva, eso nos dice algo, y estamos tratando de jugar la pelota tranquilos para llevarnos ese campeonato en Maracay. ??Cu?l es la sensaci?n de pertenecer a un equipo que impuso un r?cord de m?s finales consecutivas? ?Me llena de mucho orgullo, porque este es un equipo bastante competitivo y eso algo que hemos demostrado por muchos a?os corridos. ??C?mo observa a Magallanes en esta final? ? Lo veo bastante bien, est? muy bien conformado. Tiene bateo y pitcheo, al igual que nosotros, por lo que debemos jugar bien a la pelota y tratar de hacer carreras. ??Qu? podr?a inclinar la balanza a favor de uno u otro equipo? ?Pienso que el que corra con m?s suerte y el que juegue mejor la pelota cargar? con este campeonato, porque aqu? est?n los dos mejores equipos, que no llegaron aqu? por casualidad. Vamos a ver qu? es lo que pasa. ??Qu? opina de la adici?n de Randall Simon a la parte gruesa del line up arag?e?o? ?Su llegada le da bastante profundidad al line up, le da bastante poder y creo que podemos hacer muchas cosas juntos en esta final. ?Algunas personas afirman que usted no ha terminado de explotar porque los jonrones no salieron en el round robin. ?Qu? opina al respecto? ?No s? por qu? la gente dice eso, bate? m?s de .300, empuj? 17 carreras, anot? m?s de 10 carreras y el equipo est? en la final. ?Qu? m?s se puede pedir? ??Ser? que esperaban una actuaci?n similar a la de hace dos a?os, cuando bate? .448, sac? nueve jonrones y remolc? 32 en la postemporada? ?Bueno, quiz?s. ?se fue un a?o en el que estaba bastante caliente, pero todos los a?os he mantenido mi ritmo. Lo importante no es lo que hace Miguel Cabrera, lo importante es que el equipo gane. Miguel Cabrera no hace al equipo de los Tigres de Aragua, el equipo de Aragua lo hacen 25 peloteros que salen a jugar pelota. ??Est? en sus planes asistir a la Serie del Caribe? ?Ahorita no hay planes de la Serie del Caribe, ahorita el plan es ayudar a los Tigres de Aragua para que sean los campeones. ??Pero le gustar?a asistir? ?Hay que titularse en esta serie primero, apenas estamos empezando. Despu?s se hablar? de eso.

I don't see Borchard as a CF but then again I don't see anyone we have as a CF but assuming Borchard wins the CF job I think he would be the biggest CF in MLB I have ever seen. I don't remember a CF bigger than him. He's a big guy.

I hate the way people always throw around this garbage about being good at handling pitchers and whatnot. It's mostly people talking out of their asses. I agree 100% but this surprises me coming from you given your frequent use of CERA to support your positions.

The Phillies have a lot more to prove before I call them the team to beat. There is a good chance Garcia and Eaton get lit up next season in the Philly bandbox and you gotta wonder how much longer Moyer will have big league stuff. There are also major injury concerns with Eaton and Hamels, who made a huge IP jump in 2006. I don't expect Lieber to improve much from his mediocre 2006. Still, I expect them to be more competitive in 2007. Just not the team to beat yet. The Mets are the team to beat. I also think the Mets are the team to beat but the Phillies are right behind them and should be the favorite for the WC. Your concerns about their rotation are valid ones however even with those concerns their '07 rotation is hands down better than their '06 rotation. I mean I would take Garcia, Eaton and Moyer over Madson, Wolfe and Floyd.